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N. Meijering
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Small lunar rovers are becoming increasingly relevant as NASA’s Artemis programme and the growing availability of commercial lunar landers drive renewed interest in returning to the Moon. However, the barrier to entry for developing such rovers remains substantial, and no common framework currently exists to guide their design. Similar to CubeSats, small lunar rovers could benefit from a shared size and interface framework. Such a framework could give designers a clearer set of constraints to work from, making small lunar rover missions more accessible for universities, research groups and small companies. This thesis investigates a deployment-driven standardised small lunar rover concept with a mass of 10kg and below, and derives preliminary constraints and design guidelines.
Deployment is taken as the common starting point, since rover missions may differ strongly in payload, mobility system and subsystem design, but every rover carried by a lander must still be deployed onto the surface. The thesis first reviews current rover developments and commercial lander interfaces, followed by a trade-off of candidate deployment methods. The drop/push concept is selected as the most suitable baseline because of its low mechanical complexity, limited lander impact and scalability for multiple small rovers. A simplified two-dimensional model is then used to analyse free fall, release disturbances and initial touchdown stability.
The results show that, for the investigated case, initial tip-over stability at first contact is not the limiting constraint. However, this does not guarantee full post-touchdown stability, since effects such as bouncing, sliding, wheel deformation and terrain interaction are not included in the simplified model. Instead, the lateral clearance required during deployment becomes the dominant design driver, especially when multiple rovers are accommodated within a single lander. The case study translates these findings into preliminary rules for rover geometry, centre-of-gravity placement, drop height, surface clearance, release conditions and multi-rover spacing. The main contribution of this thesis is therefore the identification of deployment-driven constraints and their translation into first-order design rules for a preliminary standardised small lunar rover concept. ...
Deployment is taken as the common starting point, since rover missions may differ strongly in payload, mobility system and subsystem design, but every rover carried by a lander must still be deployed onto the surface. The thesis first reviews current rover developments and commercial lander interfaces, followed by a trade-off of candidate deployment methods. The drop/push concept is selected as the most suitable baseline because of its low mechanical complexity, limited lander impact and scalability for multiple small rovers. A simplified two-dimensional model is then used to analyse free fall, release disturbances and initial touchdown stability.
The results show that, for the investigated case, initial tip-over stability at first contact is not the limiting constraint. However, this does not guarantee full post-touchdown stability, since effects such as bouncing, sliding, wheel deformation and terrain interaction are not included in the simplified model. Instead, the lateral clearance required during deployment becomes the dominant design driver, especially when multiple rovers are accommodated within a single lander. The case study translates these findings into preliminary rules for rover geometry, centre-of-gravity placement, drop height, surface clearance, release conditions and multi-rover spacing. The main contribution of this thesis is therefore the identification of deployment-driven constraints and their translation into first-order design rules for a preliminary standardised small lunar rover concept. ...
Small lunar rovers are becoming increasingly relevant as NASA’s Artemis programme and the growing availability of commercial lunar landers drive renewed interest in returning to the Moon. However, the barrier to entry for developing such rovers remains substantial, and no common framework currently exists to guide their design. Similar to CubeSats, small lunar rovers could benefit from a shared size and interface framework. Such a framework could give designers a clearer set of constraints to work from, making small lunar rover missions more accessible for universities, research groups and small companies. This thesis investigates a deployment-driven standardised small lunar rover concept with a mass of 10kg and below, and derives preliminary constraints and design guidelines.
Deployment is taken as the common starting point, since rover missions may differ strongly in payload, mobility system and subsystem design, but every rover carried by a lander must still be deployed onto the surface. The thesis first reviews current rover developments and commercial lander interfaces, followed by a trade-off of candidate deployment methods. The drop/push concept is selected as the most suitable baseline because of its low mechanical complexity, limited lander impact and scalability for multiple small rovers. A simplified two-dimensional model is then used to analyse free fall, release disturbances and initial touchdown stability.
The results show that, for the investigated case, initial tip-over stability at first contact is not the limiting constraint. However, this does not guarantee full post-touchdown stability, since effects such as bouncing, sliding, wheel deformation and terrain interaction are not included in the simplified model. Instead, the lateral clearance required during deployment becomes the dominant design driver, especially when multiple rovers are accommodated within a single lander. The case study translates these findings into preliminary rules for rover geometry, centre-of-gravity placement, drop height, surface clearance, release conditions and multi-rover spacing. The main contribution of this thesis is therefore the identification of deployment-driven constraints and their translation into first-order design rules for a preliminary standardised small lunar rover concept.
Deployment is taken as the common starting point, since rover missions may differ strongly in payload, mobility system and subsystem design, but every rover carried by a lander must still be deployed onto the surface. The thesis first reviews current rover developments and commercial lander interfaces, followed by a trade-off of candidate deployment methods. The drop/push concept is selected as the most suitable baseline because of its low mechanical complexity, limited lander impact and scalability for multiple small rovers. A simplified two-dimensional model is then used to analyse free fall, release disturbances and initial touchdown stability.
The results show that, for the investigated case, initial tip-over stability at first contact is not the limiting constraint. However, this does not guarantee full post-touchdown stability, since effects such as bouncing, sliding, wheel deformation and terrain interaction are not included in the simplified model. Instead, the lateral clearance required during deployment becomes the dominant design driver, especially when multiple rovers are accommodated within a single lander. The case study translates these findings into preliminary rules for rover geometry, centre-of-gravity placement, drop height, surface clearance, release conditions and multi-rover spacing. The main contribution of this thesis is therefore the identification of deployment-driven constraints and their translation into first-order design rules for a preliminary standardised small lunar rover concept.
Bachelor thesis
(2023)
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D. Jonikaitė, J.J. Bijlsma, J.B. Stuyfzand, M.W. van Lent, N. Meijering, N. Donners, M.S. Sujahudeen, S.M. Wessels, W.G.J. Offringa, R. Pasolari, V.K. Poorte, F.C. Mihalache, J.M. Kuiper